


Truce

by Eglantine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Football, Gen, Pacifism, christmas truce, silliness, ww1 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In belated honor of the centenary of the Christmas Truce... another World War 1 AU (because for some reason that makes perfect sense to me I don't know).</p><p>The Friends of the ABC play football. For France.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truce

Courfeyrac was attempting to give a rousing, patriotic speech. The intended topics included: the gravity of the moment, the promise of eternal glory for France, the necessity that they perhaps risk their lives for said glory. Only Combeferre, damn him, would not stop grinning, and it was terribly distracting.

“Out there, in no man’s land—in no— Combeferre would you like to speak?” 

“Not at all, captain,” he replied with that maddening grin. “I think you’re doing a splendid job.” 

Courfeyrac held in his hands a makeshift football (crafted by Feuilly out of some bandages and spare scraps). He was mightily tempted to fling this at Combeferre’s head. 

“Show some respect, will you? This whole truce was your idea, you know,” he said instead. 

This was not strictly true. It had been the Germans’ idea, really—early in the morning, one of them had popped up on top of his trench, white flag in hand, scaring the hell out of Pontmercy, who happened to be the first to see it. Luckily, Combeferre had noticed next, and with his trusting nature and Pontmercy’s startlingly good German (he had, it transpired, taken work as a translator before the war), they managed to come to an agreement: an unofficial truce, for Christmas day. 

The football was Bahorel’s idea. It was, at least, a language that both sides understood.

“Can we just go beat the Germans?” Bossuet asked. Everyone agreed that this seemed best. 

*

Feuilly found himself on the defense, flanked by Enjolras and Pontmercy. The former was looking typically stoic; Pontmercy was plainly trying to pretend that his evident nervous confusion was some kind of fervent excitement. 

A thought occurred.

“Do either of you actually know how to play football?” Feuilly asked. 

Enjolras looked vaguely irritated at the question. “Of course. You just put the ball in the thing, don’t you?”

Jean Prouvaire was about to put the ball into play. Feuilly frantically flung up his arms.

“Wait!” 

*

Feuilly was now flanked by Joly and Bossuet. Enjolras had been relocated to the goal, where it was hoped that his height could compensate for his lack of skill. Courfeyrac dragged Pontmercy to the midfield, where it would be easier to just tell him what to do. 

*

Combeferre displayed an impressive tactical ability, though his knowledge of what he _should_ be doing was unfortunately rarely matched by the speed or dexterity required to actually do it. Though he did manage one truly dirty tackle that left his teammates gaping as he calmly stood and straightened his spectacles. Looking terribly impressed, one of the Germans said, “And that’s a medic?” Pontmercy could only shrug.

(The medical profession was represented on the other hand by Joly, who could not be described as skilled at the game by any means, but was at least effective in halting play with his flamboyant responses to even the slightest contact by an opposing player.) 

Indeed the only ones to demonstrate much in the way of actual ability were Feuilly (trained up on street matches far dirtier than this one), Courfeyrac (who took his duties as captain very seriously), Bahorel (when he came barreling towards the goal the German defenders fled), and—to the surprise of most—Grantaire and Prouvaire. Grantaire accepted his teammates’ surprised congratulations with a shrug, but Prouvaire was indignant at the implication—and he held forth on this subject at great length, until only Feuilly was polite enough to listen—that a poet could not possibly also be good at sport.

*

Pontmercy was in the completely unfamiliar and therefore highly uncomfortable position of being in demand. Of all the French who spoke some smattering of German, he was by far the best, which meant that men from both trenches were constantly asking him to come translate. Which he, blushing and stammering, did. He had a vague notion that it would get easier as the day went on, that he would stop feeling so nervous and shy. This did not happen.

*

Bahorel came across Prouvaire and a German chatting away in a language he did not recognize.

“What the hell are you speaking?” he asked.

“Hebrew,” Prouvaire said, as if this should be perfectly obvious. “Though we’re mostly stuck communicating in Biblical allusions, which is of course fine with me. And from the way he keeps smiling, I gather my pronunciation is appalling.” 

*

“Do you remember last Christmas?” Joly asked.

“No,” Grantaire replied instantly. 

The sun was setting and they were sitting on a rock, smoking tobacco given to them by the Germans. Bossuet, under the pretense of nursing the black eye received in the football match, was resting his head in Joly’s lap. Grantaire was doodling them on the back of the envelope the tobacco had come in, though neither had noticed yet. 

“We spend it together, us three, remember?” Joly insisted. “We drank too much—”

“That could describe literally any evening the three of us have spent together,” Bossuet pointed out. 

“—we had a Kings’ cake, and I was crowned King and—and I made Bossuet my Queen.” He flushed slightly at this and quickly repeated, “We’d had too much to drink.”

“Yes,” Grantaire said, grinning. “I do remember. I just wanted to see if you remembered that part, too.” 

“It wasn’t so different from this,” Joly mused. “Warmer. And smaller odds that we’ll all die tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly,” Bossuet said. “You were equally convinced of your imminent demise in Paris.” 

Joly ducked his head and smiled as Grantaire laughed. “—yes, that’s probably true.” 

*

“Happy Christmas!” Courfeyrac called brightly upon finding Enjolras and Combeferre huddled together, watching the flares some enthusiastic Germans had set off like makeshift fireworks. He sat down next to them.

“The Germans said I play football well for a Frenchman,” he said cheerfully. “And then they gave me some chocolate. Want some?”

“Oh, go on then,” Combeferre said, and Courfeyrac passed him a piece. 

“And tomorrow they will go back to trying to kill you,” Enjolras said quietly. “And you them.”

“You do have a way with ruining festive feeling, don’t you,” Courfeyrac said after a brief but heavy pause. 

“It’s true whether or not we’re willing to think about it,” Combeferre said. 

“You could have refused,” Courfeyrac said, looking to Enjolras. “Gone to prison instead.” 

“It didn’t seem right, at the time,” Enjolras said, but he looked uncertain, an expression that Courfeyrac was not at all accustomed to seeing on his face. “After all those months of strikes and protests—after a lifetime of reading about insurrections and uprisings and blood and barricades—I think it was just today that I’ve finally realized that—that the world has changed, hasn’t it? It’s as you have said all along—” He turned to Combeferre. “That the truly radical action is peace.” 

“Look at today,” Combeferre said. “We hold nothing against each other, these soldiers and us. The things that our governments have gone to war over are things our people hardly care about, or understand.”

“All they see is their fellow man,” Courfeyrac added. “Stuck in a miserable hole on Christmas, just like them.”

“Imagine,” Enjolras said, “if every soldier had the courage to refuse to fight tomorrow, too. And the day after, and the day after… and the governments and generals could do nothing to stop it.”

“Just… don’t get yourself shot for insubordination, eh?” Courfeyrac said, seeing something that unnerved him in the blaze in Enjolras’s eyes. “I think you absolutely have a brilliant career as a goalkeeper ahead of you.” 

Combeferre laughed and Enjolras cracked a small smile, though his mind still seemed to be somewhere else. A flare went off overhead and a group nearby started singing in German and were answered in French.

“Well. Happy Christmas, anyway,” Courfeyrac said.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gutted to learn that the veracity of the reports that German, French, and English soldiers played each other at football during the Christmas Truce have recently been questioned. But come on.
> 
> Also, I'm sure the odds of a bunch of friends ending up in a regiment together are slim (maybe they all enlisted? I sort of doubt it), but let's just go with it.


End file.
